war hero
by hyugaclans
Summary: He learns to live with himself. Gale, Johanna, and District Two.


**a/n: **It's been a while. Reviews are appreciated

**war hero**

Gale is somewhat of a celebrity is District Two. He is handsome and charming and a little bit mysterious, the perfect poster child to build a new nation upon. They interview him on TV and he is very solemn, very serious, smiling a little at the right times. They broadcast recaps of the rebellion, his face always shown, his silhouette immortalized with the other at the very end. Slogans will appear on the screen "THE FIGHT ENDURES," the words shout. He is handsome and charming and mysterious, and with any other options dead or unusable, he becomes the glorified.

Most of the time Gale doesn't mind it, and some of the time he even relishes the attention. He'd be at Headquarters, previously town hall of District Two, or he'd be walking down the street and someone would see him, someone would say his name. He gets a lot of respect from it, too. When they work people always find him to ask about a detail, or his opinion. Girls love him too, even more than they did back home in District Twelve. It's the allure—hotshot handsome Gale Hawthorne. More often than not he ends up in a corner of some bar feeling a girl's lips on his own, soft, sweet. He forgoes steady relationships, replacing them with strings of girls who don't seem to mind that he's never there in the morning, never there to buy them a second drink. He doesn't remember even half of their names.

Other times he resents it. He resents that cannot go anywhere without being recognized, without being reminded of what he did in the rebellion. It's a feeling he can't quite pin down; guilt, perhaps, remorse. Unsettled, more like, disturbed that his actions have been edited clean and twisted so many times, until they proclaim Gale Hawthorne can do nothing wrong. Even at bars with the lights dimmed and minds muddled with alcohol he isn't safe. It's on these days, in these moods, that he resorts to drinking a Johanna's place, who, despite it all, seems to have a steady supply of liquor on demand.

"Be careful, you're turning into a regular Haymitch there," she jokes, her tone mocking. He never responds to these jabs. Johanna knows full well he hates them; it's why she does them. She has an uncanny knack to pick out the soft spots in people and rip them to shreds.

It's been a year and he still can't think of them—of _her_—without wanting a drink. He supposes it's one of the only reasons he even visits Johanna. When he gets in the feeling he wants nothing more than to never talk to anyone again and definitely not the people who smothered him with admiration, respect. Thinking about the girls who glance at him sideways out in public, their eyes inviting, their mouths sweet with flirts and teases, makes him want to puke. He goes to Johanna's for the alcohol, but also for the brutal honesty.

The first time he goes to Johanna's is only a month after he comes to District Two, his head still reeling and his heart still aching. Johanna is not sympathetic.

"What can I say, Gale?" she says, crossing her arms. "It was pretty horrible. You killed lots of little children. You probably killed Prim too. I'm not gonna be your goddamn therapist."

He sits down, wanting to sink into the floorboards. "I had to do it. I know that."

"Is this because of Katniss?" Johanna asks, tossing out the name as if it didn't keep Gale up at nights, tossing and turning, as if hearing it didn't remind him that he lost the only person he truly trusted, as if—

"Why do you ask?"

Johanna rolls her eyes. "If I don't remember incorrectly, you and Peeta were fighting over her once, weren't you? I mean, before you killed her sister."

"Stop," he says through gritted teeth. Johanna studies him, her face blank.

"Don't worry, handsome," she says after a while. "I have plenty experience myself."

She hands him a beer and while he opens it, feeling the condensation on his hands, she tells him, "Look, we've all done things that weren't pretty. You're a war hero now, kid."

Gale tells himself that he isn't bitter. He always ends up to the same three points: one, Katniss deserved Peeta, two, he had his whole life in front of him, and three, he helped win the rebellion, goddamn it. Still, he is left to face the facts, that Katniss chose Peeta, that he had let her down, and holy shit—what had he done?

He doesn't know where all this came from. There was no other way to have won, he tell himself—fight fire with fire, give the Capitol a taste of their own medicine, let them walk into their own trap. Even now he does not know if he regrets it. Deep down, he has to admit he doesn't, really. He just wishes—

_Wishes that what?_ a voice asks, sounding maddeningly like Johanna's. _That Katniss would run back to you, looking at you the way she did when you first showed her the traps? That she would forgive you? That there would be a happily ever after, a carefree running into the sunset?_

The real Johanna isn't much better than the one in his head. He isn't exactly sure what she does in District Two. Sometimes he sees her around at Headquarters. She always looks a little out of place, a little too bony and a little too ragged, her eyes still hard and sharp. Her hair's grown out now, her eyes less hollow. He sees her chatting up the employees. Johanna possessed a certain charm, a cold, biting charm, that puts people off but also draws them closer. Whenever she sees him there she waves, overenthusiastically like a mother embarrassing a child.

"Why_ hello_, handsome," she says, winking at him.

They ask him if she's his girlfriend. He tells them no, that there was nothing further from the truth. Gale isn't even sure if Johanna is his friend. Sometimes he feels like she's sick of him, tired of his whining. But she always lets him in, and always hands him a drink. They sit in her living room together, her relaxed on the couch, him on the armchair, his back hunched, his hands holding his drink between his legs. Tradition. They talk about nothing in particular. Once in a while Johanna turns on the TV but Gale tells her, every time, to shut it off.

"Honestly," she tells him. "You're Gale Hawthorne. Everyone loves you. Girls are practically crawling over you. You have your fancy job. What more do you want? What happened to the boy I used to know in District Thirteen?"

What she's asking is, what happened to the hatred? Where did Gale's burning drive go, where did his lack of remorse, his recognition of what needed to be done? She's asking, what changed? Gale searches his heart for the old hatred, the old desire. He has a feeling it's still somewhere in him, but he just can't seem to grasp it.

"I don't know," he says. "I don't know what I am anymore."

He drinks one, two, three more—he drinks until he almost forgets.


End file.
